News

10 May 2015

FTC acts against fake weight loss affiliate spammer

The Federal Trade Commission has obtained a court order temporarily halting a Glendale, California, operation that allegedly used millions of illegal spam emails, along with false weight-loss claims and fake, unauthorized endorsements from celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, to market its unproven diet pills.

The court order halts the defendants’ illegal conduct, freezes their assets, and appoints a temporary receiver over the corporate defendants. The Commission ultimately is seeking to recover money from the defendants that would be used to provide refunds to consumers who bought the defendants’ diet pills.

03 May 2015

Quebec woman accused of using botnets and malware to harass

27 year old Valérie Gignac is facing criminal charges for allegedly taking over people’s computers remotely, spying on them through their web cameras and also harassing them through their computer speakers.

Cloudmark’s 2015 Q1 Global Threat Report

The Q1 threat report from Cloudmark covers the impacts seen 6 months after the enforcement of Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

Last year Canada implemented one of the strongest anti-spam laws in the world, CASL. We took a close look at the impact, and the results surprised us. We saw a 37% reduction in spam originating from Canada, but it wasn’t just spam that went down. Over all, Canadians received 29% less email after CASL was implemented. We believe this is because there was a lot of marketing email which was not technically spam but did not meet the strong requirements for affirmative consent required by CASL.

01 May 2015

California case law currently allows spammers to send email with deceptive "From" and "Subject" lines, so long as the body of the message provides the true identity of the advertiser. For example, pornographic advertisers could send email with misleading headers to 12 year old children just because there is a truthful name following the offensive images in the body of the email.

Several friends of the court including CAUCE have filed a brief in the case of DeWitt v. Devry University, Inc. While CAUCE and the other friends have no direct financial interest in the case, they have an interest in email as a tool that is more than simply an advertising vehicle for commercial entities that seek to shift the cost of advertising to recipients.

The appellate court in the DeWitt case will have to decide whether the plaintiff email recipient proved his case against the senders of unsolicited commercial email. The amicus curiae take the position that,while the defendants were ultimately entitled to summary judgment, the state of the law requires clarification.

CAUCE, and others, including several private electronic mail service providers, argue that the appellate court for the California State First District should reject the holding in Rosolowski v. Guthy-Renker, which held that unsolicited commercial email does not violate California statutory law if the body of the email provides contact information not provided in the headers.

20 April 2015

The Competition Bureau has taken action against what it considers to be deceptive marketing practices by two of Canada’s largest rental car companies, Aviscar and Budgetcar, and their parent company, Avis Budget Group Inc. ... Today’s action also marks the Bureau’s first proceedings under the new provisions of the Competition Act that came into force as part of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) in July 2014, because Avis and Budget also use electronic messages to disseminate the alleged false or misleading representations. ... Press Release

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) today announced that Plentyoffish Media Inc. has paid $48,000 as part of an undertaking for an alleged violation of Canada’s anti-spam legislation.

Acting on complaints submitted by Canadians, the CRTC’s Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer launched an investigation. Plentyoffish Media had allegedly sent commercial emails to registered users of the Plenty of Fish online dating service with an unsubscribe mechanism that was not clearly and prominently set out, and which could not be readily performed, as required by the legislation. The emails sent by Plentyoffish Media notified users of services available through their registration to the dating site. The alleged violation occurred between July 1, 2014 and October 8, 2014.

Once made aware of the investigation by the CRTC, Plentyoffish Media updated its unsubscribe mechanism to comply with the legislation.

As part of the undertaking, Plentyoffish Media will develop and implement a compliance program to ensure that its activities are compliant with Canada’s anti-spam legislation. The compliance program will include training and education for staff and corporate policies and procedures.

The CRTC is assessing all complaints submitted to the Spam Reporting Centre that are under its mandate and a number of investigations are currently underway. The CRTC is working with its partners, both within Canada and internationally, to protect Canadians from online threats and contribute to a more secure online environment.

The CRTC can discuss corrective actions with individuals, firms or organizations, which may lead to an undertaking that includes an amount to be paid and other corrective measures. As part of its powers, the CRTC can also issue warning letters, preservation demands, notices to produce, restraining orders and notices of violation.

Canadians are encouraged to report spam to the Spam Reporting Centre. The information sent to the Centre is used by the CRTC, the Competition Bureau, and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner to enforce Canada’s anti-spam law.

Quick Facts

Plentyoffish Media has entered into an undertaking with the CRTC’s Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer, under which the company has paid $48,000 for alleged non-compliance with Canada’s anti-spam legislation.

Plentyoffish Media allegedly sent commercial emails to registered users of its online dating site that did not contain an unsubscribe mechanism that was set out clearly and prominently, and that could be readily performed.

Once made aware of the investigation by the CRTC, Plentyoffish Media updated its unsubscribe mechanism to comply with the legislation.

To help Canadian businesses comply with the law, the CRTC has provided numerous information sessions across the country and made guidance materials available on its website.

The CRTC is working with its partners, both within Canada and internationally, to protect Canadians from online threats and contribute to a more secure online environment.

Canada’s anti-spam legislation protects Canadians while ensuring that businesses can continue to compete in the global marketplace.

Canada’s anti-spam legislation was adopted by Parliament in December 2010 and came into force on July 1, 2014.

“Prior to the coming into force of Canada's anti-spam law, the CRTC conducted numerous outreach sessions and issued guidance material on interpretation of the new requirements. Plentyoffish Media erred by sending commercial electronic messages to its registered users with unsubscribe mechanisms that were not in compliance with the law.

This case is an important reminder to businesses that they need to review their unsubscribe mechanisms to ensure they are clearly and prominently set out and can be readily performed. We appreciate that Plentyoffish Media changed its practices once it became aware of the problem. The CRTC encourages Canadians to continue to report suspected violations to the Spam Reporting Centre.”Manon Bombardier, Chief Compliance and Enforcement Officer

14 January 2015

Last July the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs took spammer Zeljko Aksentijevic to court for violating their anti-spam law. Today the court fined him $12,000 for sending 2,230 illegal commercial messages. This is the first case in NZ where a spammer has appeared in court and defended himself, so this sets an important precedent that the law is indeed valid and can be enforced.

The spam in question was send to members of a gaming forum, and promoted the sender's free Android app. Even though the app was free, the spam was illegal because it was unsolicited, did not include accurate sender information; and had no working unsubscribe. More details are available in the DIA's press release.

CAUCE has long believed that enforcable anti-spam laws are a key part of the ongoing effort against spam, with predictable modest penalties that remove the profit from spam.

01 July 2014

We (Chris Lewis, John Levine, and myself) founded CAUCE CANADA November 30, 1998, Our dream of a Canadian anti-spam law was realized today, July 01, 2014, some 15 years and seven months later.

The process was arduous, fraught with fits and starts, setbacks and goals achieved, but with consistent hard work and an unwavering belief in the fact that end-users have the fundamental right to choose what messaging imposes itself upon them, we got it done.